Hafnarborg

About this audio guide

This guide to Hafnarborg in Reykjavik opens with a question: who hands over their own house, in writing, to an entire town? On the first of June, 1983, a Hafnarfjörður pharmacist named Sverrir Magnússon and his wife Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir did exactly that at a town ceremony. You'll hear how the couple ran their pharmacy behind this same counter for nearly four decades while Sverrir quietly built an art collection that began with a single watercolor he could barely afford during the depression years. It follows how their gift certificate spelled out exactly what the building and collection should become. Stand at that old counter and consider what decades of steady trade were turning into all along.